Big Changes on the Horizon

I think this picture will explain why I haven't done a blog post in months.  I never thought that a side effect of pregnancy would involve a complete apathy to achieve.  For the first trimester almost all my hobbies and interests brought little "WOW" power.  Things are feeling a little more back to normal now, thank goodness!  I cleaned the house last weekend for the first time in months, and I decorated for fall this week, so I think my energy is returning.  I still feel weirded out about having to share my body with someone else (I'm only at 16 weeks and my midsection just feels crowded), but on the flip side I love the excuse to wear sweats 24/7!  Taylor and I are excited to embark on this journey of parenting!  We feel ready to accept this big responsibility, and are trusting God to help guide us through, well, the next 20 or so years of bringing up a family!  Keep us in your prayers, and I'll try and do a good job of posting more pictures as our pregnancy progresses.

Spring Break 2011

We just returned from a very mellow and relaxing mini vacation along the Oregon Coast.  While it rained a fair amount of the time, we were still able to get in quite a few hours of sunshine and beach time.  I don't know what it is about the ocean, but I could just watch the the tide go in and out for hours.  I will miss those grey blue waves and sandy beaches.

We stayed in a yurt in Nehalem Bay State Park, which is about 25 min south of Cannon Beach along the prettiest stretch of Highway 101 I've ever seen.  We had the luxury of heat, electricity, hot showers, and a modest arrangement of furniture.  The trip was pretty much flawless except for one minor detail- it was too wet to create a cook fire, and we realized once we arrived that we didn't have an attachment on our cooking stove to hook up to the propane.  We tried to make macaroni and cheese one night on our space heater, of which I refused to eat after one bite because the texture of the noodles was mush.  Lucky for us, we brought along plenty of food that didn't require cooking!

White Rock on a nice spring night

 Last Friday afternoon we decided to head up to White Rock, B.C. for a couple of hours.  It only took us 20 minutes to get from our front door to our parking spot in front of the beach.  It was a great night to cross the border!  We spent a couple of hours on the beach at low tide, just before the sunset, and had fun playing with a vintage camera app on our phones.

Metsker's Cabin 2011

For the past seven years I have been making trips to Packwood, WA, to stay at Matt's cabin with the rest of the gang.  This year we encountered new territory, as the Terps brought along Kyah.  She now holds the privilege of being the first of MANY kidlets to make the long trip to the cabin, an honor I'm sure she will lord over the rest of the kids many years from now.

The boys all brought their air soft war gear so of course there was plenty of shooting, along with some snowshoeing along the Pacific Crest Trail, an epic snowball fight, lots of lounging and eating, and playing games.  It was a terrific weekend!

If you look closely in this picture you can see about 20 elk crossing the river!

Whirley Ball

This post is coming a little late, but a few weeks ago we celebrated Brett's big 3-0 down in Seattle playing Whirley Ball.  I had no idea what this game was before I walked through the doors to the playing arenas, and when I found out I giggled with glee!  It is pretty much the coolest sport ever invented!  Whirley Ball combines bumper cars with lacrosse and basketball and it is physically trying and oh-so-fun.  If you have something big to celebrate in the near future you should totally throw a Whirley Ball party.